2014 MRS Spring Meeting

It has been recognized that solar energy will play a critically important role in a sustainable future of humanity. How to harvest solar energy and store it in the form of chemicals for easy transportation and redistribution remains a significant challenge. At the heart of challenge is the lack of suitable materials that can perform the energy-conversion process efficiently and inexpensively. The challenge is particularly acute in approaches based on solution-phase reactions. Compared with solid-state devices such as p-n junction photovoltaic cells, solution-based photoelectrochemical (PEC) solar-energy harvesting processes offer the advantage of low fabrication cost and potential to directly produce fuels, which will solve problems associated with the diurnal nature of sunlight. Examples of solution-based solar-energy conversion approaches include regenerative photoelectrochemical solar cells (such as liquid-junction solar cells, dye- or quantum-dot-sensitized solar cells), photoelectrochemical and photocatalytic water splitting and CO2 photofixation.

To meet the challenge, researchers with diverse backgrounds need to work closely together across different disciplines. This symposium will contribute to such a goal by providing a platform for materials scientists, chemists, physicists and engineers to communicate their vision and the latest exciting new results. Areas to be covered by the symposium will include regenerative photoelectrochemical cells, photoelectrochemical and photocatalytic approaches to water splitting and CO2 photofixation. Because charge behaviors important to solar energy conversion have characteristic lengths on the nanoscale, an emphasis will be placed on the utilization of nanoscale materials such as quantum dots, nanorods, nanowires and hierarchical nanostructures. As organic-dye-based solar cells have evolved into a distinct and flourishing field that is very large, this symposium will not attempt to cover topics related to this approach but instead will focus on emerging new technologies. Speakers from industry and government agencies will also present overviews and perspectives on future solar-energy research.

This symposium will focus on recent progress, current challenges and future directions for dye-sensitized solar-cell technologies. It is recognized that dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) is one promising technology to be competitive to traditional energy sources and other energy-conversion devices in the future. However, the relatively low efficiency of energy conversion, inadequate understanding of long-term stability, as well as the corrosive nature of iodide-based redox couple, prevent the mass production of DSCs in the marketplace. Recently, significant breakthroughs in energy-conversion efficiencies up to 12.3% for liquid electrolyte-based DSCs and about 12-14% for perovskite-based solid-state DSCs have led this technology to a new paradigm with commercialization not far away. The symposium aims for discussions on advanced organic and inorganic materials that have the potential to address aforementioned challenges.

Topics will include:

Advanced light-harvesting materials (organic/inorganic)

Innovative electrolyte or hole-conducting systems

Efficient counter-electrode or photocathode materials

Novel nanostructured semiconducting materials

Charge injection, transport and recombination

Device modeling and scale-up

A tutorial focusing on fundamentals of advanced light-harvesting materials is tentatively planned. Further information will be included in the MRS Program that will be available online in January.

In 2016 we have almost completed the collection that started with Nanostructured Energy Devices vol. 1. The next two volumes will be published in the CRC Press (Taylor&Francis) along 2017. The full collection will have the following Titles: Juan Bisquert. Nanostructured Energy Devices − Equilibrium Concepts and Kinetics (2014) Juan Bisquert. Nanostructur […]